BOOKS I'VE ENJOYED

A bookshelf built by the author, volumes nicely "colored-coded" and positioned above Grandma's rocker.

It all started for me when I . . .

found myself reading a book. That must have been one of my first moments of self-awareness: it was "me there," and I was "doing this thing." And, I would now add, I was silently communicating, interpersonally, with another human being - an author. Many of them long dead, but they took time to leave behind vestiges of their psyches. Wonderful things, books. People, too, sometimes.

I don't remember learning how to read, and I certainly do not remember who taught me. When I asked my mother, "Mom, when did I learn how to read?" she said, "Oh, Larry, you've always known how to read."

Reading, for me, is like oxygen, and although I do now read electronically, I much prefer a dusty tome, preferably one snatched up off a high shelf in an antiquarian bookstore.

A few years ago a friend bet me I couldn't name a hundred books I'd read, so I typed up the first draft of this list then and there. (I think I stopped at around one hundred and fifty. It took maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.)

I don't update this list regularly, but, like walking into a disorganized room and not knowing what you might find, maybe you'll see an interesting title, or an obscured author will be recalled to memory.

I couldn't possibly agree with all of these authors about everything, since they disagree among themselves, but I never fail to think affectionately back to the where and the when as I skim through this living graveyard. And I think, too, of the human spirits that have generously given of themselves for our education and amusement.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some titles are listed more than once. Enjoy!

(How To Keep) Snakes In Captivity

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

100 Songs by Ted Quinn

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

A Commentary on Psalm 119 by Charles Bridges

A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles by Joseph A. Alexander

A Commentary on the Book of Romans by Karl Barth

A Concert of Tenses by Tess Gallagher

A Hole In The World by Richard Rhodes

A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Month of Sundays by John Cheever

A Part of My Life by A. J. Ayer

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

A Piece of Work by Jay Woodruff

A Theory of Consciousness by Brian O'Shaughnessy

A World Without Time by Palle Yourgrau

All of Us by Raymond Carver

Allen Ginsberg: A Biography by Barry Miles

Analects by Confucius

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

Augustine: A Life by Peter Brown

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

Basic Vocabulary List

Beat Collection by Barry Miles

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography

Bisexuality: Theories, Research, and Recommendations for the Invisible Sexuality by D. Joye Swan and Shani Habibi